This feature appears in the February ‘17 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
More than anything else today, I need your help to fight the “smear merchants” who want to smear you; blame your Second Amendment-protected rights for crime; and block every pro-gun, pro-freedom reform of President Donald Trump.
From Senate Democrat leader Charles Schumer and House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi, to Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Chris Murphy and Dick Durbin, these anti-gun politicians not only refuse to accept that they lost on Election Day—they’re also coming back at us with a vindictiveness you wouldn’t believe. Not content to play defense, they want to shove more gun bans down our throats!
Your NRA membership card is your chance to turn the tables on them. It’s your ticket to defeat the anti-gunners embedded throughout Washington, D.C.; to reverse eight long years of Barack Obama’s anti-gun executive orders, anti-Second Amendment judges, and anti-gun regulation by freedom-hating bureaucrats—and to reclaim our freedoms across this great land!I’m counting on you to stand with me and NRA to face down the entrenched D.C. bureaucracy and political elites who even now seek to transform our victory into their advantage.
I’m counting on you to stand with me and NRA to face down the entrenched D.C. bureaucracy and political elites who even now seek to transform our victory into their advantage.
Because let me tell you: They’re coming out of the woodwork. The lies, the distortions, the baseless accusations of racism and hatred, and the just plain mean-spirited political vindictiveness—they’re like nothing I’ve ever seen here in the nation’s capital.
They’re going to do everything they can to stop, block, defeat, derail, overturn, reject, filibuster, sit-down strike and circumvent every pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment nominee, bill or policy that President Trump proposes.
And if you, I and the rest of the NRA aren’t here to combat them and retake the precious ground we lost to the extralegal attacks of Obama—then it could all be lost.
Make no mistake: This is our moment.
This is our chance to go on offense, to take the fight to their doors, and to defeat the forces that have aligned against our freedoms once and for all.
It’s our chance to win our rights back.
And make no mistake: This fight isn’t finished—this fight is only beginning.
The forces arrayed against us are gathering money, manpower and momentum fast. They’re using their defeat in November as a fundraising tool. Their donors are furious over losing, and they’re opening their checkbooks like never before.
And let’s face it: For billionaire elitists like Michael Bloomberg or George Soros, the hundreds of millions they spent on last year’s elections amount to nothing more than a rounding error—a day’s worth of interest on their bottomless bank accounts.
Their goal is the same as it’s always been: To eliminate the right to keep and bear arms for everyone except themselves, their security details and their fellow billionaire elitists.
And if these anti-gun, anti-freedom forces have their way, they’ll make our Election Day victory irrelevant long before the next election rolls around.
They’ll attack every Supreme Court appointee Trump dares to nominate, lecturing him or her with all the sneering outrage and innuendo they can conjure. And if you think the Senate confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas or Robert Bork were ugly, you haven’t seen anything yet.
They’ll try to spike every pro-Second Amendment regulation or reform that Trump proposes, with ominous warnings of how it’s the cause of inner-city killings, or how it’s part of some larger evil agenda.
And they’ll slur you with every name in the book—“racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it,” to quote Hillary Clinton—to try to discredit you, embarrass you, silence you and demonize you in the eyes of the public.
And with a lying, deceitful, shamelessly partisan national media machine behind them, they’ll exploit every crisis, politicize every tragedy and fan the flames of every controversy to try to control the narrative in order to attack your freedoms.
That’s why I need you to sign, validate and carry your NRA membership card with pride today.
Your NRA membership card is your ticket to stop anti-gun extremists like Schumer, Pelosi, Blumenthal, Murphy, Durbin and other anti-gun smear merchants across Capitol Hill.And if these anti-gun, anti-freedom forces have their way, they’ll make our Election Day victory irrelevant long before the next election rolls around.
And your NRA membership is exactly what is needed now as we fight to correct or counteract eight years’ worth of Obama’s encroachments on your right to keep and bear arms, from the hundreds of federal judges he appointed, to his anti-Second Amendment executive orders, to the armies of federal bureaucrats and volumes of federal regulations they issued over the past two terms.
So please, before you do anything else, take the time to rejoin NRA, or renew or upgrade your NRA membership right now. Help me defend our freedom and stop the smear merchants.
As NRA’s executive vice president, I need you to stand with me and the NRA to ensure that the victories you won on Election Day pay off in the form of a stronger, undiminished and thriving Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms—along with the safety and freedom that it, alone, guarantees—for our children, our grandchildren and future generations.
I’m counting on you.
